Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Auden, Wystan Hugh/Kallman, Chester. Naples, Donnerstag, 7. Juli 1960
author: Henze, Hans Werner
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Hans Werner Henze-Stiftung (Dr. Michael Kerstan). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Naples, 7th July, 1960
Dear W y stan and dear Chester,

It is a long time I have not heard from you which may be my own fault as I have been travelling and working. My Prinz was a big success in Spoleto, too,[^1] but this is all forgotten as I am living in the world of Elegy now. Only some important experiences seem to be left from the Prinz, some of which will be helpful for writing out music for Elegy . During the last two months I have always been reading the lib r etto[^2] over and over again and from that derives a long list of more wishes which I now would like to put before you with humility hoping for understanding and grace.[^3]

[^1: Henze refers to the first Italian performance of his opera Der Prinz von Homburg with a libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann, based on a play by Heinrich von Kleist, which Henze himself conducted at the Teatro Nuovo in Spoleto on 24 June 1960.]

[^2: The version of the libretto to which Henze refers in this letter has yet to be located. For this reason, sometimes it is not possible to ascertain whether Henze's requests were accepted by the librettists or not. However, it cannot be ruled out that this version is also kept among the materials relating to Elegy for Young Lovers at the Paul Sacher Foundation.]

[^3: As early as a week later, on 14 July 1960, Auden sent Henze a telegram saying that it had been impossible to reach him on the phone. Auden would have liked to discuss the items Henze mentioned in this letter over the phone, however, the two librettists had to send the composer a letter on 15 July 1960.]

1) The first thing is a wish from Rennert , that for his Glyndebourne production, and I think it is a good idea for the whole work: Could we change the place of action from the inn Der Schwarze Adler into the poet's private house in the mountains? This, says Rennert, would have many scenic advantages and would give more possibilities for both designer and producer. Hulda could be, instead of a frequent guest of Der Schwarze Adler, just a guest of the poet's [Henze meant: the poet’s guest] who is annually invited there for her prophetic activity. [The librettists did not accept this. See also Kallman's letter on 15 July 1960.]

2) You have not replied yet about the names[^4] but I trust that as soon as possible I will have the names already discussed with Chester in Hamburg. I need them badly now.

[^4: A letter dated 8 April 1960 from Kallman to Henze suggests that the two would probably have met in Hamburg in April 1960 or that Kallman would have telegraphed Henze the names of the characters of their opera Elegy for Young Lovers. In any case, no document in which Henze proposed names for the characters has been preserved, since this is the first letter Henze wrote to the librettists Auden and Kallman.]

3) Something very important now: More and more the Edelweiss appears to me as a little too bitty and unhappy a choice and I think this comes from what all Germans and Austrians have; we have grown up with tasteless songs and stories about this plant and it means something rather obvious and too much used in musical comedies and silly folky songs and stories. [Here, Henze is thinking of famous German folk songs that mention the alpine flower, such as Das schönste Blümlein auf der Welt or Es war ein Edelweiss.] As a matter of fact, from this plant no music comes to my mind. I think everything would be easier and better if you could think of a mysterious and very rare Alpine plant, flower or root which one could find in a book of biological sciences – this would give more magic and mystery to the whole subject. I have not got such a book with me, otherwise I would have found out for myself and given you some proposals. [The librettists did not accept the proposal to replace the Edelweiss. See also Kallman's response on this topic in his letter dated 10 October 1960.]

–2–

4) I have already written the 2nd scene of Act I (The order of the day) but while I wrote it I discovered that this scene, as an exposition of the whole play, does not contain enough information about the poet. When you say in your genesis that at the end the audience must be convinced that the poem he has been writing is a very good one otherwise the whole dramatic and moral point of the opera would be lost, and that our poet is a great man,[^5] we should give much more information about his importance and quality in this second scene. I would suggest that Carolina would tell Dr.Reichmann a bit more about important reviews, that in this dialogue perhaps should be mentioned important contemporaries of the poet. One could allude to the Nobel Prize [There is no allusion to the Nobel Prize in the final libretto.] and so on and so on. In short, we must get the information here that the poet is of great importance to his time. [In subsequent letters preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation, there are no references or responses to Henze’s reflection.]

[^5: Here, Henze is referring to some phrases from the Genesis of a Libretto seemingly already drafted by Auden and Kallman in July 1960 and then published in the Libretto of Elegy for Young Lovers in 1961, pp. 61–64. Henze refers, in particular, to this sentence, p. 63: Our hero, Gregor Mittenhofer, is a great poet. Throughout the opera he has been working on a poem; in order to complete it successfully, he (morally) murders two people and breaks the spirit of a third. Unless, at the end, the audience are convinced that the poem is a very good one, the whole dramatic and moral point of the opera is lost.]

5) At the end of this scene we come to Carolina's hiding of the gold coins in the flower pot.[^6]Actually I stopped composing here because something in me revolts against this situation, especially when later, after his row with Carolina, the poet comes back to pick up these coins. I would love you to cut both these scenes, [The librettists only cut the lines Henze quotes here, describing the poet finding the coins.] but it would be important perhaps to get some more information about Carolina having helped the poet financially when he was young and of her attempt to remain important to him by trying to continue to deposit money in the bank for him or things like that.[^7]

[^6: This comes in Act I, Scene II (The Order of the Day). Like a child's game, Carolina lets the Poet find gold coins that she hides here and there. She sings: At first I always chose / A place that He was bound to find: behind his bedroom clock. / But presently I realized that what / he most enjoys / Is playing hide-and-seek. So now I change it every day. / Great poets are like children .]

[^7: The librettists do not comment on Henze’s reflection in subsequent letters preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation, but – probably in light of this suggestion – the librettists then added the text (at the end of Act I, Scene II) for the duet between Carolina and the Doctor, in which they both praise their work for the Poet, who without the two of them would be lost. Carolina also alludes to the young Poet's need for financial support: When young, the Poet cannot earn his bread / And someone has to give it him instead: / Then, when he triumphs, someone in his name / Must bear the burden of his world-wide fame.]

6) Now to (III) (Scheduled arrival). Could you cut down to 1/2 the dialogue between Lina, when Toni comes and will never stop here [The verse Henze quotes will never stop here is not in the final libretto, perhaps because the librettists actually shortened this part.] and would you terribly mind to leave out the thing of Elizabeth's reading Hofmannsthal: I feel that reading an author who is not a friend of ones favourite man would not be a disloyalty.yet.[^8]

[^8: As in previous cases, unfortunately, no written reflections of the librettists regarding this observation by Henze have been available, but in an exchange of lines between Carolina and the Doctor (Act I, Scene III), she warns that the Doctor should not trust Elizabeth because she reads Hofmannsthal: I shouldn’t trust Elizabeth too far if I were you. […] The other day / I caught her reading Hofmannsthal. The three authors of Elegy for Young Lovers dedicated the opera to Hofmannsthal: To the memory of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian, European and Master Librettist, this work is gratefully dedicated by its three makers.]

7) Something about (V) (Wordly business). The poet's tirade against his contemporary colleagues which, as you remember, I never particularly liked, I find suddenly much too much under his own niveau. Couldn't he,please, be a little more serious and professional about it, and couldn't he instead of this cheap sort of sarcasm express what one usually feels when one talks about colleagues: a bit of hatred which is mixed with jealousy and fear? I think that would be more dignified. Let these birds....etc. I can simply not compose. [The quoted verse Let these birds is not present in the final libretto. See the queer sensitive perspective about these lines in Federica Marsico, Il poeta e la sua elegia del desiderio inappagato .]

–3–

8) The scene (VI) (Help) just leave out, as already mentioned, and make a bridge into (VII), where I wonder if the Doctor's lullaby to Carolina could not be left out too as it only stops the action.[^9]

[^9: Act I, Scene VI was not deleted, but is very short. The Help in the title of the scene refers to the help the doctor gives Carolina, who has fainted from the flu and from a lack of rest, as well as the poet calling upon Titania to help him find the money Carolina had hidden. He eventually finds it under the flowerpot. The Doctor's lullaby is effectively deleted and only an opening line remains in Act I, Scene VII, in which Carolina says: And the grave, lovely ...]

9) Now to the Second Act. Page 2). Could we please reduce to its half the dialogue between Doctor, quickly come at once and you come with me, preferably even less than half.[^10]

[^10: Here, Henze refers to the end of Act II, Scene I in which Carolina sees Elizabeth and Toni embracing. She suddenly calls the Doctor, Toni's father: Doctor! Quickly! Come! Look there!. Carolina sings the line You come with me to Elizabeth, with whom she will speak in private. This section is very short and it is therefore conceivable that the librettists shortened it, as Henze requested.]

10) The Terzetto on pages 3) and 4) still seems terribly long to me and I cannot invent so much music and you would be most helpful if you would reduce this text to its half. [Since the version of the libretto to which Henze refers has yet to be located, at present it is impossible to determine whether or not the two librettists reduced the text by half.]

11) Elizabeth's last words of (IV) (The master's time) There must be plenty of nice well-bred girls and the next following four lines I would wish they were less straight forward. I cannot see how Elizabeth suddenly uses such language.[^11]

[^11: Henze is referring to the following verses, which the librettists did not change, despite Henze's request: Let our Gräfin find / Someone more suitable, / Respectable, dutiful: / There must be plenty / Of nice wellbred girls under twenty / Who would jump at her offer / Of board and bed with Herr Mittenhofer.]

12) Same scene (double duet). Carolina should, after the poet's question: Where is our ex-prophetess g i ve as an answer some more information about Hulda's new situation. If we imagine that since the truth of her husband has been revealed to her we shall not see her again until she comes onto the stage tight, I think we should at this point hear something more about how she is behaving now. (For instance, let Carolina tell that she is happy now and coming back to normality or something like that) [This does not appear to be included in the final version of the libretto.] But at the same time, the dialogue between the poet and Carolina should be much shorter, please, perhaps 1/2. Especially as I have another wish here: After the poet's These muffins are too good to waste finish, when Carolina goes out to the terrace, I think he should have a very short monologue of half fury, half anxiety to be left alone or to be betrayed. Something very short (2 lines may do) to make it clear that everything which follows when he talks to Elizabeth is false.[^12]

[^12: After the quoted verse he continues to eat, picks up the crumbs and throws them in his mouth and just says: She will ... she won’t ... she will ... she...won’t.... This verse probably constitutes the monologue required here.]

13) The big duet Personal Questions still looks dazzlingly long to me and I wished you could shorten it for me, maybe 35%.

–4–

14) Now something very, very grave. Last week I have been in Glyndebourne where I had some important entretiens with Rennert. We have discussed again the matter of how to give three Acts in their theatre. I saw with my own eyes that there is an interval of 75 minutes which cuts the whole entertainment into two parts. It is very important for the success of the work that before people go out for the long interval, there should already have been a great deal of exciting theatre and music given to them. Now, if we send the audience out after Act I, it is not yet very much what they have seen, and after the interval they will be confronted by the long (you must help me to not make it too long) 2nd Act, another short interval and the entire 3rd Act. Rennert had an idea to make a two minute interval after Act I and treat the first half of Act II as Act I, part 2, and finish this at page 11) with Elizabeth's My own, my own, the little planet flies which would be a very tender and musical end for which I would ask you to give me four more lines of the same beauty. Now Act II would begin with Did you tell me (I could quite well imagine some time, for instance, a dinner, before Toni had time to talk to Elizabeth again. In other words, the interval seems not illogical here.) But even more, Mr. Rennert thinks that before Toni and Elizabeth meet again at this point there would be a very good occasion to introduce a little divertimento. He sees something like a silent scene of Hulda lying in a rocking chair, having a drink and moodily listening to a gramophone record which might play something from Tristan, for instance. I love this idea and I would be very glad if you could agree and would let us have it here.[^13]

[^13: The two librettists expressed their opposition to the idea of including a divertimento, as an interlude in the middle of the opera, in their letter of 15 July 1960. The divertimento Rennert proposed was not included in the opera. As Henze reports in his Autobiography, p. 171, during the Glyndbourne premiere there was only one interval, after the Act II. The audience thus sat through a full 120 minutes before they were able to take the seventy-minute break.]

15) The next dialogue (Again (VII)) What must be told seems much too long for my poor musical capacities and I think it would be marvellous if I were allowed to compo s e only half of it. The same thing goes for (VIII) (The wrong time) The dialogue from You may, Toni down to Carolina's madness at the end of page 13) could do with less than half the text, please.

16) I cannot imagine Hulda arriving singing the Lohengrin Wedding March. I hope you don't mind if I invent something of my own. [In the opera there is no musical quotation from the Wedding March from Wagner's Lohengrin, Act II, Scene 4.] After that, everything is all right as to these big ensembles numbers I will have to write.

–5–

My next hesitation takes place on page 19), after the singing about the poem. As a matter of fact (XI) (The Flower) I would love you to shorten for me until Elizabeth's saying Gerold I am shamed.

17) Now something very important occurs to me here. Thinking about the poet's personality I think it is wicked and terrible enough of him if he, in Act III, does not tell Mauer about the young lovers being on the mountain, but it is sort of admittedly from the audience's point of view to think, and from my own viewpoint, to think that he sort of has this fatal moment of forgetfulness,which could be interpreted as such or as an intentional evilness, while I convince myself more and more that his sending the young lovers up to the mountain to pick the magical flower for him would just be one thing too much: I wonder if you could agree to changing the text slightly at this point and let Toni and Elizabeth tell him of their voluntary intention, perhaps out of gratitude, to go up to the Hammerhorn for him, or something similar – anything to avoid that the poet himself sends them up there to perish. I guess this can be easily done just by altering a bit of the text there. [As terrible as it was, the librettists maintained their crude version in which precisely the poet requests the two lovers to go up the mountain to pick him the edelweiss flower.]

18) In the same sense I think we could omit, at the end of (XII) Mauer's telling about the bad weather which is to come and avoid Mauer's incapacity of bringing more Edelweiss to him and all that. I hope you can agree.[^14]

[^14: Mauer's brief communication to the poet at the end of Scene XII (The vision of to-morrow) remains as follows: Herr Mittenhofer, I’ve had no time this month / To find you some Hammerhorn Edelweiss, but I forecast To-morrow’s weather as warm enough ... / To-morrow’s weather as warm enough...]

19) Some points now on Act III. A Question: Why does Carolina say to the doctor: Here are the keys just in the beginning of Act III. I don't quite understand what she gives the doctor the keys for, and also I wonder if it would be possible to cut from this phrase down to Hulda's saying: Gräfin…. just to not lose too much speed with all these extended good-bye scenes. [The keys are those of an apartment in the city. The section was probably not shortened, since it contains the farewell verses quoted by Henze.]

20) Another cut I would be for, from the warning whistle noise and the doctor's It's time down to the Quartetto The young in pairs that would make a wonderful bridge. [The quoted lines remain in the final libretto.]

21) Another wish. If you could help me by cutting to half the dialogue poet–Caroline from while that leaves 2tö go until Mauer's entrance and in any case omit the poet's A year? I don't imagine so and then where will she go? [The quoted line remains in the final libretto.]

22) After Mauer has left, the dialogue Lina, you look dreadful [At the beginning of Act III, Scene V (Mad happenings).] up to Carolina's and overnight all will be changed change into a short dialogue for the sake of 20) Ill build a fire and tend it which I would leave to have enlarged to one more 7-liner and put more madness and intensity into it, perhaps some of the things she is to sing in the long A day has gone tirade.

–6–

As a matter of fact, this last tirade, from A day has gone down to to change scene I would like to have changed into just a mute scene of winding up the clock with a bit of music and no singing. This change I really do need because of a determined musical idea I have for this scene and its form would be unrealisable if we would stick to the above mentioned A day has gone tirade.[^15]

[^15: Henze composed Carolina's aria not as a mute scene, but with an alternation of declamato and coloratura and a very delicate instrumental accompaniment, and followed by an instrumental-only section leading to the scene change.]

23) Act III, scene 2, section 1 . Toni’s Come, here is a little shelf of rock under which to shelter against the storm I would beg you to let me leave out and to just making it look like this: Elizabeth: I can’t go on Toni: We’ll stop here

2 4 ) Act III,section 2. I would wish to be 1/2 as long as it is now.

25) Now to the Epilogue (Sc. 3) [In the final libretto this scene is number IX entitled Elegy for Young Lovers.] I do not understand nor like particularly the poet's monologue 1 2 3 4 whom do we adore and I don't know how to compose that.[^16] It would be very sweet of you to give me something else there.

[^16: The text quoted by Henze remained in the final libretto (these are the verses by Mittenhofer (looking at himself in the mirror) from the final libretto: One. Two. Three. Four. / Whom do we adore? / Gregor! Gregor! Gregor! / Five. Six. Seven. Eight. / Whom do we appreciate? / Gregor! Gregor! Gregor! / Happy Birthday, dear Gregor!), so it seems the two librettists did not heed Henze’s request.]

26) The poet's request for no applause to his speech to the audience.– For various reasons, of which the most important is my superstition, fed by bad experiences, one should not ask for trouble so openly at the end of a play, and I beg you to change the text slightly there. [The two librettists accepted this request.]

My dear boys, this is a long list of requests and wishes which I put to you with the slight preoccupation that you m i ght be annoyed with me. I hope you won't and I think you are such good friends and librettists and craftsmen that you will quite understand the reasons for my requests, which are, with a few exceptions, all musical reasons. You would make my life much easier if you would be so kind to send me a quick reply, maybe by telegram, [As early as a week later, on 14 July, Auden sent Henze a telegram saying that it had been impossible to telephone him. The two librettists wrote in response to this a letter on 15 July 1960.] letting me know if you generally think you can help me and provide me with the changes as soon as possible. This goes especially for Act I which is the main subject of my present work now. Time goes by very quickly and I am getting slightly nervous now and would love to have things got right as quickly as possible. Please, don't let me down. At the end of the month I am going up to Salzburg [When Henze went to Salzburg is currently unknown.] – do you think I could come to see you for a couple of days, about July 30th? Please reply quickly.[^17]

[^17: Henze actually visited Auden and Kallman in Kirchstetten from 4 to 6 August 1960, as traceable from Auden and Kallman's guest book in which Henze wrote with love and gratitude and pride to have such a beautiful libretto!, see W. H. Auden (Biography) in: Auden Musulin Papers, entry to 4-6 August 1960.]

–7–

From now on I have to concentrate 100% on this work which, as Chester said in his telegram to Hamburg, [This telegram has not been located to date.] should be a success even bigger than the Prinz von Homburg . I am not able to extend a musical form for a very long time, everything is very concentrated and put into short terms – that is why I need everything more condensed and concentrated. Please help me.

Love and best wishes.